Traeger vs Weber Pellet: 600°F or 10-Year

You searched "Traeger vs Weber pellet grill." Every guide you've opened names a different pair of grills. One compares the Ironwood 885 to the SmokeFire. Another jumps to names you don't recognize.

That's not you missing something. Both brands quietly moved the goalposts.

Before you get into brand-specific specs, our pellet grill guide walks through the searing-versus-warranty trade-off this matchup is really about.

The two pellet grills actually worth comparing right now are the Traeger Ironwood XL and the Weber Searwood XL 600, not the older Ironwood 885 or the Weber SmokeFire that most existing guides still name, since Weber discontinued SmokeFire for the US market and Traeger fully redesigned the Ironwood line in 2023-24.

Traeger's current flagship carries a 10-year warranty. Weber's splits its coverage at 5 years on the cook box and 3 on everything electrical. That's a real gap, and it's not the only thing that changed. We'll walk through why the old comparison doesn't hold anymore, then get into which grill actually fits how you cook.

Why the Old Comparison Doesn't Hold Anymore

Weber's SmokeFire line launched in 2020. It became the default "Weber pellet grill" in nearly every comparison written since. It isn't anymore.

When we dug into why, we found Weber has confirmed it will not build new SmokeFire units for the North American market, and the evidence backs that up directly.

Weber's own US product page for the SmokeFire EX6 no longer resolves to a listing. Amazon's listing for the same grill reads "Currently unavailable," with no restock date given. Searwood, launched in 2024, is Weber's current pellet grill line for US buyers.

We found Traeger's side of the comparison moved too, for a different reason. The Ironwood 650 and Ironwood 885, the model names most guides still use, ran on a dial-and-digital-display D2 controller.

Traeger's current pellet-grill lineup page doesn't list either name anymore. The Ironwood line was redesigned around 2023 to 2024.

A full-color touchscreen controller replaced the dial. It's the same touchscreen generation we cover in our recteq vs Traeger comparison, including its documented failure modes. A new accessory rail system was added. The warranty term itself changed too, and that's where this gets interesting.

What Actually Changed

Lining up the current flagship-class grill from each brand shows the cooking specs land close together. The Traeger Ironwood XL cooks on 924 square inches across two tiers and tops out at 500°F.

The Weber Searwood XL 600 cooks on 972 square inches, split 630 on the main grate and 342 on a second level. It reaches 600°F.

Neither brand has a real size edge here. The 100°F gap on the ceiling is the one that matters if searing is part of your routine.

Here's the part we found almost nobody's caught up on. Traeger backs the current Ironwood XL with a 10-year limited warranty, covering defects in materials or workmanship.

Weber's Searwood XL 600 splits its coverage by part instead. The cook box and unlisted parts get 5 years. Electrical parts, cooking grates, the burn pot, and the heat diffuser get 3 years each.

That's a wide margin on paper: a flat 10-year term against a 5-year top tier that steps down to 3 years for most of the grill's moving parts. It's worth weighing against the Searwood's extra 100°F of searing headroom before deciding which trade-off matters more to you.

Traeger Ironwood XL

The current Ironwood XL keeps the smoke-focused identity the Ironwood name built its reputation on. It also catches up on the parts of the experience owners complained about most. The old dial controller is gone, replaced by a touchscreen that also runs the app-connected features.

An EZ-Clean Grease & Ash Keg collects drippings and pellet ash in one container, instead of scattering cleanup across the cook box. A P.A.L. accessory rail lets you add hooks, shelves, and storage bins.

The touchscreen is also the grill's one new liability. Traeger's own support site runs several troubleshooting articles for this controller generation, covering a frozen display, WiFi pairing failures, and mid-cook shutdowns.

That's evidence of a known failure-mode class for the controller, not a confirmed defect rate for this specific model. A troubleshooting guide existing means the issue is common enough to document. It doesn't mean it happens to most owners.

That's also a separate issue from a jammed auger, which affects Traeger's whole current lineup regardless of controller generation. If that's the actual problem in front of you, our Traeger auger jam guide covers the fix by controller type.

500°F is still the ceiling, same as the previous Ironwood generation. If getting a real crust on a steak matters as much to you as low-and-slow smoke, that ceiling is the real trade-off against the Searwood XL 600 below.

Weber Searwood XL 600

Searwood's biggest design change from SmokeFire sits at the back of the grill. Or rather, it doesn't anymore. SmokeFire's rear-mounted hopper was a recurring source of owner complaints about jamming. It's the same failure mode pellet moisture causes, as we document in how pellet moisture causes jamming.

Searwood moved the hopper to the side. It also swapped SmokeFire's internal sheet diffuser for DirectFlame cooking, which Weber says puts more direct heat on the grates for searing.

A Rapid React PID controller targets a heat-up time of around 15 minutes under lab conditions. A front-access pull-and-clean tray handles grease and ash.

Weber rates the Searwood XL 600 to 600°F, 100°F past what either Ironwood tops out at. On paper, that's genuine searing territory. It's paired with a SmokeBoost setting that holds a lower temperature specifically to maximize smoke absorption during long cooks.

The catch, and it's a real one: multiple independent Searwood owners, posting on an owner forum in 2024 and 2025, report the grill running 50 to 100°F below its displayed setpoint on extended cooks. One owner measured the gap directly with a separate probe thermometer during a long cook. Another contacted Weber support about the same pattern and was told the unit was operating within spec.

That's not a universal complaint. Searwood launched too recently, in 2024, for multi-year ownership data to exist yet either way. It's still a real, independently reported pattern worth knowing about before you buy, not after. You can run your own guest count and cook style through our Grill Size Calculator to see which current models actually fit.

What Neither Grill Has Yet

Here's an honest gap worth naming rather than papering over. No independent lab has published a rated test of either current flagship model, not Consumer Reports or an equivalent program.

That organization has tested pellet grills before. Its lab work covers the previous-generation Ironwood 650 and the now-discontinued SmokeFire EX6. That data describes grills neither brand currently sells.

Every performance claim about the current Ironwood XL and Searwood XL 600 comes from the brands themselves or from individual owners, not from a controlled, independent test. That includes the specs and the owner reports above.

It's a real gap in the current picture, not a reason to wait. It's a reason to weigh brand performance claims a little more carefully than a lab-verified number.

Our Verdict

This is a fair fight: Traeger and Weber each field a current pellet grill worth comparing on its own merits. The honest answer depends on which trade-off actually shows up in your cooking, not on brand loyalty left over from an older generation.

Pick the Weber Searwood XL 600 if a real 600°F sear matters to you as much as smoke. You'll need to accept a documented, if not universal, setpoint-accuracy quirk that's still working itself out on a 2024 design.

Pick the Traeger Ironwood XL if you want the longer warranty and don't need to sear past 500°F. You'll be troubleshooting a touchscreen controller the way you'd troubleshoot any other connected appliance, if it ever comes to that.

Check the current listing before you commit to either one. If a roundup you're reading still names the SmokeFire or the Ironwood 885 without mentioning either change, you now know more about what's actually for sale than the article does.